The miniaturization of electronic equipment has led in turn to the miniaturization of structure supporting the electronic elements such as printed circuit boards and the necessity to closely space the contacts of the connectors carried by the boards in achieving interconnection between mother boards, daughter cards, and/or the electrical components carried by the boards or cards. In the miniaturization of connectors, particularly useful in connecting a daughter card to a mother board, or a stack of mother boards or daughter cards in overlying, spaced arrays separated by connector bodies, one connector body or half is carried by a lower card or board a second mating connector body or half is carried by the upper card or board and being in general alignment therewith, it is desirable that the conductors or contacts on the card or board lie at longitudinally spaced positions and in aligned rows with minimal spacing, i.e., preferably on 0.010 inch centers.
The problem experienced by such connectors lies in the shorting between contacts due to their close spacing.
Further, where the connector is formed of mating connector bodies or halves, it is difficult to obtain and maintain alignment between the connector bodies such that the individual conductive components or contacts, on 0.010 inch centers are in alignment and have full face contact therebetween upon completion of the connection between the connector halves. Further, it is desirable that such connectors are sufficiently flexible so that connections may be made between the closely spaced contacts on the connector body or to input lines such as flat cables or flex circuits.
It is therefore a primary object of the present invention to provide an improved connector formed by mating bodies of electrically insulative material having longitudinally spaced metal contacts at minimal center-to-center spacing on mirror image surfaces of the connector body, which inherently provide a greater creepage path than the center-to-center distance between adjacent contacts, which provides a wiping action during connector body mating to guarantee contact integrity, which limits the insertion force to achieve the connection between the connector bodies, which guarantees against shorting between adjacent cards or boards during the unmating of the connector halves and which permits right angle coupling of a daughter card to a mother board, or the co-planar stacking of mother boards, daughter cards or the like separated by the interfitting connector body halves.